This Charming Man

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We will go back one day for visit,’ she promised. ‘Uncle Tom’s cabin should be free for bank holiday weekend in about seven years’ time.’

  Grace

  Saturday had passed without me getting up the nerve to confess to Damien. It also passed without de Courcy shopping me to Damien. Sunday too passed without incident. Then it was Monday and Damien rang me from work.

  ‘Charlie and Angus have killed the story about Dee.’ His voice was trembling with excitement.

  So Paddy had stuck to his word and got his source to withdraw the story. Probably the only decent thing he’d ever done in his life. It was only now that he’d actually done it that I believed it. Even over the weekend, I’d half expected to see the story about Dee pop up in one of the papers.

  ‘You’ve saved Dee’s career,’ Damien said.

  ‘So have you.’

  ‘Seriously. A general election is going to be called soon. IfPaddy had got his way, he’d be going into the campaign as leader of New Ireland.’

  ‘You were the one who risked his job.’ Anxiously I added, ‘You haven’t been sacked?’

  He laughed. ‘No. No talk of a leak. No one’s making a big deal of it.’ Stories were killed all the time, it was a routine occurrence. ‘There won’t be any fallout,’ he promised me. ‘It’s all going to be okay.’

  I wanted to believe him.

  One way and another it had been a rough six months. Since the summer I’d been desperate to make things up to Damien and for us to be back to normal.

  Maybe now we could be. Maybe the whole horrible de Courcy episode had finally been put to bed.

  Daring to be hopeful, but still holding my breath, Monday passed without Paddy de Courcy ruining my life.

  Ditto Tuesday.

  Ditto Wednesday.

  On Thursday the Taoiseach Teddy Taft called a general election.

  This was very good news. Paddy would be up to his tonsils with campaigning. And he was getting married in five weeks. He’d have no time to be bothered with someone like me.

  I decided it was safe to breathe again.

  Lola

  Monday, 2 February

  Recommenced work. Had expected slow start. But no! Funny thing had happened. SarahJane Hutchinson had suddenly been elevated to queen of society. Combination of her new, wealthy boyfriend and her ‘connection’ with Zara Kaletsky had thrust her to summit of pile. Despite bloodhound knees, everyone wanted to be her friend. Everyone wanted to serve on her committee. Everyone wanted to use her stylist…

  Yes! I had stuck with her through the bad times, for once in life backed the right horse and looked set to reap rewards, assuming could hold it together and not burn any expensive dresses at shoots.

  Phone began ringing.

  First week of February

  Snowed under with work.

  Changed mind about styling Grace Gildee. People are the way they are. No point trying to change them.

  Also cannot spare time.

  Monday, 9 February 21.13

  Siam Nights

  Jem had called emergency summit meeting in Thai restaurant. Despite me being snowed under with work, he insisted that I attend.

  Was forty-three minutes late. Rushed in. ‘Apologies, apologies, but am –’

  ‘– yes, snowed under with work.’

  Sat down. Looked around at Treese, Bridie and Jem. ‘What did I miss?’

  ‘He wouldn’t tell us until you got here.’ Bridie sour.

  ‘Apologies, apologies, but am –’

  ‘Don’t say it.’

  ‘Now that everyone is finally here,’ Jem said, with ominous formality, ‘have something to tell you all.’

  Heart sank. He was getting married to stinky Claudia and we would be stuck with her for ever. Worse, would have to go to her hen night, maybe even organize it. Am not a hen-party person. Too dangerous.

  ‘Tell us, then,’ Bridie demanded.

  Jem suddenly shifty. Making patterns with his glass on the table. ‘I’ve… ah… met someone.’

  Moment to digest his words.

  ‘Met someone? You mean… a woman?’

  He nodded, still shifting glass about like receiving messages on ouija board.

  ‘But you already have woman! Claudia!’

  ‘Yes! Claudia!’ Treese confirmed.

  With his hand, Jem made short, brutal, Mafia-style chop across his neck. ‘Gone.’

  Claudia was gone!

  ‘Who “goned” her?’ I asked. Indignant. ‘You?’

  He assented. ‘Tonight she sleeps with the newsreaders.’

  ‘What? All of them?’ Bridie asked.

  He shrugged. ‘Wouldn’t surprise me.’

  ‘So you just cast her aside like out-of-date Muller Fruit Corner?’ I demanded.

  ‘Why you annoyed?’ Jem surprised. ‘You hated her. You all hated her.’

  Clamour of disagreement. ‘Didn’t hate her. No, didn’t hate her. Really quite fond of her.’

  ‘Oh all right,’ Bridie admitted. ‘Did hate her. But she hated me too.’

  ‘Treese?’ Jem asked.

  ‘Yes, hated her,’ Treese said.

  ‘Lola?’ Jem asked.

  ‘Yes, hated her. Of course. Sorry, was just having moment of identification with dumped woman there. Has passed now. Am bloody delighted. Who is this new one? I hope she’s a bit nicer than Claudia.’

  I would settle for her liking Jem, which Claudia had never seemed to manage.

  Jem’s face lit up with sappy glow. ‘Gwen. You will meet her. You will love her.’

  Yes, but he had said that about Claudia too.

  Grace

  When Ma notified me about Bid’s final diagnosis, I could have rung Damien at work, but I decided to wait to tell him in person. Because of the forthcoming election, he was working an average of fourteen hours a day, stuck on tour buses, covering God-awful campaign trails.

  It was ten to twelve when he got home from work that night.

  ‘In here,’ I called from the living room. ‘In here.’

  He pushed open the door and cheerily I said, ‘Guess what?’

  His face went grey. Slowly he sat down on the floor. (Still no new couch, it hadn’t even been ordered.) ‘Just tell me, Grace.’

  Clearly he was expecting some type of bad news. But I’d been so upbeat…?

  I looked at his anxious expression and was seized by a blinding flash of terror that he and I would never be right again.

  The night with Zara and Selma should have fixed things, but here we were, Damien and I, still mismatching each other’s moods.

  ‘Bid’s scan,’ I said. ‘She got the all-clear.’

  It wasn’t what he’d expected. I could almost see the cloud of angst lift from him. ‘Serious?’ He began to smile and smile. ‘My God, she’s unbelievable, isn’t she? Unstoppable.’

  ‘The old boot will probably outlive us all.’

  ‘I thought she wouldn’t come through it,’ Damien admitted.

  ‘I don’t know what I thought,’ I said. I suppose I simply hadn’t let myself think at all.

  ‘It’s bloody fantastic news,’ Damien said.

  ‘Even more fantastic,’ I said, ‘we can start smoking again. Six months without a cigarette, I couldn’t have done it without you.’ Pompously I said, ‘Our sacrifice kept her alive, of course, you do know that?’

  But instead of laughing, his cheer seemed to drain from him and the mood once again went into a nosedive. What the hell was happening now?

  ‘I’ve something to tell you,’ Damien said with terrible weariness.

  Instantly I was plunged into the horrors. The hideous fear intensified when he said, ‘A confession.’

  Don’t let this be happening…

  ‘I didn’t want to worry you while the jury was still out on Bid,’ he said. ‘But I’ve… betrayed you.’

  Such a horrible word that: betrayed.

  ‘I tried my damnedest, Grace.’ Damien was a pictur
e of remorse. ‘But I just didn’t have it in me to resist.’

  ‘With Juno?’ Why did I ask? Hadn’t I smelt her in my house? In my own bed?

  I’d known she’d been there. I’d known it in some deep hidden part of me. But I’d wanted so much to be wrong that I’d believed Damien when he told me there was nothing going on.

  ‘Yes, sometimes with Juno.’

  ‘Sometimes?’ I was tangled up in shock and confusion. ‘… There have been others?’ Was this worse or better? It was hard to know because it was all so horrific.

  ‘Grace, wait,’ Damien said urgently. ‘What are we talking about here?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘I’ve been smoking. Cigarettes. While you’ve been in London with Marnie.’

  It took several seconds for me to understand. ‘You’ve been smoking?’

  He nodded.

  ‘That’s all?’

  It was what I’d smelt: the faintest trace of cigarette smoke. I’d confused it with infidelity.

  ‘We had a pact,’ he said. ‘And I didn’t honour my side of it.’

  ‘But it’s okay!’

  ‘I lied to you.’

  ‘But who cares about a few sneaky fags? You haven’t cheated on me?’

  ‘Grace, that fecking word. No, I haven’t.’

  ‘Oh God, Damien, I thought… I’m so relieved, I’m –’ I should have been skipping around with relief, but suddenly something else was there.

  Where had it come from?

  Why now?

  And then I understood that it had been there all along. Just waiting for its moment.

  ‘What?’ I said defensively. Guilt jumped from my eyes and there was an answer waiting in his. Neither of us spoke and something – anything – was needed to break the strange atmosphere. I pressed my feet against the floor to stand up, but then he spoke and I froze.

  ‘Grace. I know.’

  I couldn’t speak.

  ‘About you and de Courcy.’

  The fear I’d felt when I’d thought Damien had slept with Juno was as nothing compared to this. This was infinitely, immeasurably worse.

  ‘How?’ The word was tiny.

  ‘When you were working on his autobiography. You couldn’t… miss it.’

  My life was draining from me. My entire existence was disappearing, dissolving into nothing. I actually stopped being able to feel my feet.

  ‘Please…’ I wanted to tell him that nothing had happened with Paddy and me. But that was only true in the strictest interpretation of the words and I had too much respect for Damien to fob him off with that shite.

  ‘Then your bruised face, the cigarette burn on your hand. That story about you tripping on the paving stone.’ Damien laughed softly and shook his head.

  I was horrified. I’d thought he’d believed me. How could I have been so thick?

  ‘But why didn’t you say anything?’ My voice was croaky.

  ‘If you were going to lie to me,’ he said, ‘what good would it do to tell you that I knew?’

  That was the very worst moment of my life. Even as it was happening, I recognized it.

  Shame engulfed me – pure shame, not that hot, blustery, shouty stuff where you go on the defensive, trying to pretend you’re not in the wrong.

  I knew I was in the wrong. Damien didn’t give his trust easily, it was a rare and precious thing and I’d treated it like a pair of old jocks that you use for cleaning the windows.

  ‘It was six months ago. How have you lived with it?’ This is what baffled me. ‘Without saying anything to me?’

  ‘Because I loved you. I wanted to stay with you. I wanted to fix it if we could.’

  Oh Christ… Successive waves of shame hit me as I remembered how Damien had tried to patch up the damage I’d caused.

  He’d got a bank loan to replace the car that Paddy had burnt out.

  He’d instigated date night in an effort to rekindle a connection between us.

  He’d given up cigarettes to keep my aunt alive.

  I wanted to vomit.

  ‘But why weren’t you angry with me?’

  He looked at me. He seemed surprised – then almost contemptuous.

  ‘I have been angry. I am angry.’ He bit the words out and suddenly I knew the full extent of his rage. He wasn’t trying to hide it any more and it was a cruel and terrifying thing.

  ‘Don’t blame yourself for not being able to hide your fondness for de Courcy,’ he said coldly. ‘Even ifI hadn’t guessed, de Courcy took the precaution of telling me.’

  I was shocked into open-jawed silence.

  ‘The night with Zara and Selma?’ he said. ‘As soon as you’d left, he phoned me.’

  So that was why Damien hadn’t answered my calls that night.

  ‘Damien…’ Tears began to pour down my face.

  I wanted to tell him that I’d been temporarily mad and that I was better now. I wanted to beg for his forgiveness, but I knew he wouldn’t – couldn’t

  – grant it.

  The worst thing, the most unbearable part, was that Damien had warned me this would happen. Last summer, when I’d been in the thick of my de-Courcy-itis, he’d said that ifeither of us cheated, we might get over it but that things would never be the same again. The innocence and trust would be gone.

  ‘I’ve ruined it, haven’t I?’

  He wasn’t being gratuitously harsh – but there was only one answer he could give. ‘Yes.’

  Ma opened her front door. ‘Grace? What are you doing here?’

  ‘I need sixteen euro to pay the taxi.’ I nodded at the car idling by the kerb.

  ‘Why have you come in a taxi? And why can’t you pay for it?’

  ‘I can’t find my car key. Or my wallet.’

  ‘Where are we going to find sixteen euro? We’ll have to go through your father’s glass things.’ Dad collected one-cent coins in old jam jars.

  ‘I’ll go and tell your man we’ll be a while.’ I dropped my rucksack by the door and started back down the steps.

  ‘Grace, are you all right? You look a bit –’

  ‘You know the way you said there was always a bed for me here?’

  Ma gazed at me, her face changing and becoming luminous with shock, as understanding dawned.

  ‘I’ve come to take you up on it,’ I said.

  ‘What happened?’ she whispered.

  ‘Paddy de Courcy.’

  ‘Paddy de Courcy?’

  He’d won.

  Lola

  Thursday, 12 February 20.57

  The Horseshow House

  Bridie, Barry, Treese and I awaiting the unveiling of Gwen, Jem’s new girlfriend.

  ‘Why we in this bloody pub?’ Bridie asked. ‘Is miles out of the way and full of rugby-type oddballs.’

  ‘Jem wanted neutral venue for “the meet”,’ Treese explained. ‘No reminders of Claudia.’

  ‘He actually call it “the meet”?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Cripes… What you think she’ll be like?’ I asked. ‘This so-called Gwen.’

  ‘Well, she needn’t think she can take Jem for a ride, the way Claudia did,’ Bridie said grimly.

  ‘Yeah!’ Barry agreed. ‘Too right. We’ll be watching her.’

  ‘Shush! Here they are.’

  Jem approached, grinning, grinning, grinning. Also sweating. Also rubbing his hands around and around each other, as if washing them.

  Clearly under considerable stress.

  He ushered forward tall, dark-haired girl. ‘This is Gwen.’

  At first glance, her knockers not fake.

  ‘Yes, hello, Gwen,’ we all cried. ‘Lovely to meet you, yes, lovely.’ We were smiling, smiling, smiling with our mouths but our eyes like flint.

  ‘Lovely to meet you too.’ Gwen was sweating around her hairline. ‘Yes, gin and tonic,’ she said to Jem. In quieter tone, she added, ‘Make it large one.’

  Stab of pity for this so-called Gwen. Few experiences in life more daunting
than ‘beauty contest’ with new boyfriend’s old friends. Wondering if you’ll be accepted into gang or cast into outer darkness.

  However, could not permit heart to soften too much. She could be fake-knockered hustler, like Claudia. Mind you, she didn’t seem like hustler. She seemed nice.

  Drinks, chat, anecdotes. Under guise of fake friendliness, Bridie, Barry, Treese and I assessed this so-called Gwen’s every move. Much shrill anxious laughter on Gwen’s part. Perched on edge of banquette, her legs crossed three times around themselves.

  Jem watching us, his eyes pleading, Please like her, please like her.

  Jem went to the bar – again – to pour more alcohol into us and while he was gone, Gwen slumped.

  ‘Mother of fuck.’ She wiped her forehead. ‘This is worse than job interview.’

  Chestburst of compassion for her.

  ‘You were friends with Jem’s previous girlfriend for long time,’ she said. ‘It’ll be hard to accept me. But give me time.’

  Bridie, Barry and Treese also riddled with compassion.

  ‘Actually we hated her,’ Bridie confided.

  ‘Hated her,’ Treese confirmed.

  ‘Hated her,’ I said.

  Suddenly all of us roaring laughing and firm friends. Yes, Gwen the right one for Jem. In a way, their names almost rhymed.

  Everyone truly settled now. Except me, of course. Not bitter. No. Simply observing.

  Marnie

  She rose inexorably towards the surface.

  … I’m still here … I’m still alive …

  Desperate for oblivion, she tried to push herself back down into the nothingness, but she resurfaced again, popping up like a plastic bottle on the waves. It was over, she had returned, she was conscious, she was – dispiritingly – still alive. What would it take?

  Automatically she looked around for a bottle. The one beside her bed had toppled over and emptied itselfonto the carpet, she’d have to go on a search.

  She stood up. Her legs felt as ifthey were being operated by someone else, there was a loud humming in her ears and her tongue tasted thick and numb, as if it was coated in paraffin wax.

  Down the stairs, someone else’s legs carrying her, and into the hall, where a light flashed on the answering machine. She didn’t know when she’d developed a fear of hearing messages, but she had. (The same with the post: she could barely look at it, much less open it and make neat piles.)